Alamo City: Boxing's Unrelenting Underdog

By John Whisler

Pastor Jimmy Robles believes in miracles, so he didn’t think twice when a steady rain on a recent Saturday forced the pro boxing card scheduled to take place in his parking lot inside to the middle of his church sanctuary.

The nursery with signs that read “Jesus Loves the Little Children” on the wall suddenly became home to half-naked men strapping on the gloves. When it comes to boxing, apparently nothing is sacred.

For decades, the sport has amounted to a religious experience for die-hard San Antonio fans, considered to be some of the most loyal and passionate in boxing.

That fervor is one of the reasons the Alamo City long has been regarded as one of the top boxing towns in the United States.

Clearly, boxing is king when it comes to combative sports in the Alamo City.

Las Vegas, considered the boxing capital of the world, ranks No. 1, followed closely by Los Angeles and New York.

San Antonio falls into the next tier, based on its rich tradition, history of big fights and devoted fan base, particularly among the city’s Hispanic population on the West and South sides.

Part of the reason, says “Jesse” James Leija, is boxing’s multigenerational appeal.

“My dad was a fighter, my uncle was a fighter, my cousin was a fighter, and now my son boxes, too,” said Leija, who has become the face of the sport in San Antonio after winning a world title in 1994. “It’s the same with the fans. Many of them grew up watching the sport with their fathers and grandfathers.”

But boxing in a church?

“I always said, what better way to reach people that are lost than to bring them to a house of worship,” said Robles, whose West Side church, the appropriately named Last Chance Ministries, was converted from an abandoned bail bond facility in 2009. “They’re going to feel the presence of God in here.”

Hispanics drive sport

In many ways, boxing today is a shell of its former self. The glory days of Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey, Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard are long gone.

The move to subscription television channels including pay-per-view, greedy promotional practices and the growth of the other major sports leagues in America — particularly the NFL and NBA — all have conspired to marginalize boxing and reduce it to a niche sport.

Competition from mixed martial arts and the wildly popular Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has only served to further erode boxing’s position on the American sports scene.

Always seemingly on life support, boxing somehow survives. In the Hispanic community, it thrives.

Although boxing is popular among other ethnic groups, Hispanic fans still are considered the lifeblood of the sport.

Henry Flores, a professor of political science at St. Mary’s University and a boxer as a youth growing up in San Antonio, said Hispanics’ passion for boxing is often a result of social stature and economics.

He noted boxing is a sport that is fairly inexpensive and can be participated in at many levels. It’s always been a sport of the immigrant community, as well, he said.

“For Irish, Italian and Jewish boxers at the turn of the century, boxing was a way to support your family, a way out of poverty,” Flores said. “It’s the same way for many Hispanic youth today, kids in working-class neighborhoods looking for a way to excel, a path out of the barrio.”

Flores got into boxing for the same reason as many kids in the barrio, he says — self-defense.

“I learned to box because I’m a small guy,” Flores said. “You discover at an early age you have to be tough. Not that you had to win every fight, but if you didn’t put up a fight, nobody would respect you. For many, boxing became a way to adjudicate disputes.”

Leija, whose father, Jesse, was a prizefighter in San Antonio from 1958-71 and son, James Jr., currently is 3-0 as a professional welterweight, said San Antonio boxing benefits from its proximity to Mexico, where the sport is second only to soccer in terms of popularity.

Like many other Hispanics, Leija grew up hearing about the ring exploits of Mexican heroes Julio Cesar Chavez and Salvador Sanchez, among others.

He said Mexican and Mexican-American fight fans feel an incredibly close connection to their favorite boxers, a relationship that goes beyond just a fan watching an athlete.

“We all like to see someone come from nothing, to overcome their struggles to achieve success,” Leija said. “And let’s face it. It’s a machismo thing, too. We want to be the man.”

Adrian Garay and his wife Mary, who arrived at the church early to see a friend box on the recent card, said they have been attending boxing events in San Antonio for more than 30 years.

Garay and his wife paid $600 each for tickets to the September 1993 fight between Chavez and Pernell Whitaker that drew more than 60,000 fans at the Alamodome — considered the granddaddy of all events in San Antonio boxing history.

“It was worth every penny,” said Garay, 54, who grew up watching boxing on Spanish television with his father. “We’ll never forget it. They put on a show. We’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

He said the two long for a return to the glory days when many of the big names — Chavez, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Oscar De La Hoya and Manny Pacquiao — fought or trained here and the sport was in its heyday.

“We try to go five or six times a year, to support the local events,” Adrian Garay said. “Boxing in San Antonio isn’t what it used to be. We’re hoping this (show at the church) helps bring it back.”

S.A. ranks high on list

Where San Antonio ranks among America’s best boxing towns is a moving target, about as difficult to define as landing a punch to the chin of Ali in his prime.

“I would say it’s in the top five, at one time top three,” said Fort Worth’s Lester Bedford, who has worked dozens of San Antonio boxing shows as an event coordinator and was co-manager for Leija during his career. “There used to be a steady flow of fighters coming to San Antonio to train and fight. It’s not that way anymore. But you can say that about every boxing town nowadays.”

Bob Arum, founder and CEO of Las Vegas-based Top Rank Inc., one of the world’s premier boxing promotions, said San Antonio in recent years “has fallen off the map” when it comes to boxing.

“There’s no one there locally who is pushing it,” he said. “Today, when promoters have events, they don’t think of San Antonio immediately the way they used to five years ago.”

Since the mid-1950s, the Alamo City has hosted dozens of major boxing events, culminating with the Chavez-Whitaker showdown in 1993, the first year of the Alamodome. The fight, for the Word Boxing Council welterweight championship, pitted the top two pound-for-pound boxers in the world.

San Antonio is still a desired destination for boxing promoters, just not for marquee events lately.

With 11 professional boxing cards in 2016, according to figures provided by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, which governs the sport, San Antonio ranks near the top nationally in quantity. Just not quality.

The city has not hosted a major pro event since 2013, when Mexican star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez unified the world junior middleweight titles by beating Albuquerque’s Austin Trout in front of 38,000 fans at the Alamodome and Marcos Maidana defeated Adrien Broner for the World Boxing Association welterweight title in front of 11,000 at the dome later that year.

Globally, the bruising art of boxing endures, despite an image problem in an era of heightened concerns about athletes’ safety.

San Antonio has always been a good market for television.

Executives from HBO and Showtime both say the Alamo City ranks in the top 20 nationally for boxing pay-per-view broadcasts and sometimes cracks the top 10, depending upon the fight.

“It’s still a very vibrant, thriving market for boxing, obviously because of the Latino fan base there and the presence of the military,” said Tony Walker, vice-president of HBO Sports Pay-Per-View. “It’s a market we always take into account when we do advertising for pay-per-view shows.

“I think San Antonio ranks 31st or 32nd in terms of size of television market, so for it to be in the top 20 for boxing is quite a feat. Surely it rates in the top 10 of boxing cities. It’s up there.”

Stephen Espinoza, executive vice president of Showtime Sports, said an example of the power of the San Antonio boxing market came in the cable network’s recent airing of the Keith Thurman-Danny Garcia world title clash from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

San Antonio drew the fourth-highest mark nationally, with a 3.2 household rating and 6 share, behind only Philadelphia, New York and Albuquerque.

“San Antonio has always been a very reliable boxing town,” Espinoza said. “Fans there take pride in being a boxing town.”

Bedford said what hurts San Antonio’s standing in the sweet science today is the emergence of several new arenas around the country, taking business away from the city’s major facilities for boxing such as the Alamodome and the AT&T Center.

Among them are the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, and AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones’ billion-dollar palace.

“It’s tough because Jerry owns the building, the parking and concessions and he can bid more for a big event,” Bedford said. “But you can never count San Antonio out as a fight town.”

Amateurs are backbone

Any discussion of America’s greatest boxing towns typically begins with the high-profile, professional ranks. But what bolsters San Antonio’s claim as a top five boxing town is the sport’s continued popularity on the grassroots level, the amateur ranks.

Like the professionals, the amateur division is not what it used to be when the Golden Gloves packed the old Municipal Auditorium during the 1960s and ’70s.

But it’s still strong, with boxers starting as young as 6 years old.

The Alamo City is headquarters for the South Texas Amateur Boxing Association, the second-largest such organization in the nation behind only Southern California.

“We have 78 clubs in the association,” said Mark Calo-oy, STABA’s president. “It’s an important outlet for kids, teaches them discipline. The amateurs have always had a strong following in San Antonio. It’s just part of the community.”

Calo-oy said new gyms pop up in San Antonio all the time.

One is Lara Boxing Camp on the West Side, a dimly lit plywood structure on the side of Sergio Lara’s house.

A wall of tarps is the only barrier separating the gym from the outside elements.

Most of Lara’s boxers are amateurs from the nearby Lincoln Heights Courts and Cassiano Homes public housing units.

Lara said he often waives a gym member’s $10-$20 monthly fee.

“Most of these kids are poor,” he said in Spanish.

Leo Lerma, 9, a third-grader at Larkspur Elementary, said he took up the sport after watching the “Rocky” movies.

He got his nose bloodied and lost his first match as a 65-pound amateur on a recent card at the newly renovated city gym at the Lincoln Community Center on the East Side.

But he vowed to never quit, just like Rocky.

“I love boxing,” he said. “It teaches me how to defend myself. I like the training and punching. It’s fun.”

S.A. needs new star

Leija, Bedford and others agree the best remedy for what ails San Antonio boxing would be for one of its young prospects such as Mario Barrios or Joshua Franco to become a star and attract a following.

Local boxing may never return to its glory days of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, when the Ayala and Moreno brothers were popular attractions and the sport was at its peak.

Only three Alamo City pros have ever won a world championship, boxing’s most coveted prize — Leija, John Michael Johnson and the late Robert Quiroga.

Leija, the most successful of the three, won 47 of his 56 pro bouts. He appeared in nine world title fights (2-6-1), winning the super featherweight crown in 1994 when he defeated Azumah Nelson by unanimous decision in Las Vegas and beating Nelson for a minor belt at the Alamodome in 1998.

Leija earned $4.5 million in purses and retired in 2005.

Barrios, 21, dreams of becoming the Alamo City’s next world champion. A 140-pound, super lightweight, Barrios is 18-0 with 10 knockouts as a professional.

His sister, Selina, 24, also boxes professionally. She’s 1-0 as a lightweight.

“We want to be the first brother and sister from San Antonio to bring back world titles,” he said. “That’s definitely the goal.”

Globally, the bruising art of boxing endures, despite an image problem in an era of heightened concerns about athletes’ safety.

Pro boxer Oscar Diaz suffered a critical brain injury during a bout in San Antonio in 2008 and died from its complications seven years later.

The tragedy doesn’t seem to have affected interest in the sport. Boxers — and fans — seem to accept the risk.

And while MMA has become the rage on the East and West coasts, especially, it has seen slow growth locally with only a handful of gyms.

If San Antonio is in search of its next star, none of the boxers on the card at Last Chance Ministries appeared ready to fill the bill. The roster included a 45-year-old making his pro debut.

By the time the first bell rang, a crowd of about 800 filled the sanctuary, with fans filing into the choir loft to get a better view of the bouts. Pastor Robles would be happy with this kind of attendance for his Sunday morning sermon. “I think I’ll preach from inside the ring,” he proclaimed.

Meanwhile, vendors hawked T-shirts that read “God, Family, Boxing: In That Order” and “Boxing Is My Religion” in the back of the sanctuary and in the foyer.

Music by the heavy-metal band “Five Finger Death Punch” blared from speakers, whipping the faithful into the mood for boxing.

Ring announcer Ron Rangel did his part to add to the atmosphere.

“Who wants to see a knockout tonight?” he asked as the crowd roared.

A state district judge by day, Rangel wishes he could moonlight as a ring announcer more often at night.

“I love doing this,” he said. “I look forward to it. I’ve never been to one of these in a church before, though. But I love the concept.”

Inside the ring, seven bouts feature no marquee names, just a rag-tag group of dreamers oozing effort but little else.

Glamour and purse money — fighters earn $100-$200 per round — are in short supply, not action.

Every fight is compelling in its own, brutish way, proving that boxing has an appeal both considerable and horrible.

By night’s end, the show is deemed a success. Pastor Robles and promoter Jose Garcia agree to split the revenue to help the church’s vast sports program that includes a boxing gym next door.

“Instead of fighting on the streets,” Robles said, “why not come to a place where you can learn some skills?”

But boxing in a church?

“I don’t think that could happen anywhere but San Antonio,” Leija said.